Hi, I am a recently qualified TEFL teacher and up until now have taught beginners/ post-beginners level in small groups. I now have my first adult intermediate one-to-one lesson and not sure how to plan it- any help would be most welcome!

My student wants to work on conversation and pronunciation so my thoughts are to start the lesson off with us both writing down ten questions which the other one has to pick from and answer eg where did you grow up; what did you study at university etc. This will enable us to get to know one another and also give me an idea of her level. Also if I answer the questions too it will feel like less of an interrogation. Does this sound ok?

I also thought of an exercise on small talk just to get us started perhaps?

I am hoping to use this lesson as a fact find to plan our future lessons and assess her needs.

Your approach with the questions is very good, and also by answering the questions will make the student more comfortable. Also the small talk is an excellent idea. I think you are ok.When I am teaching One-to-One the first lesson I always use it to learn my student better, I usually have a casual small talk.Hope i helped

I have recently posted a Needs Analysis sheet that would be ideal for you to use in a first class with a 1-2-1 student. It gives you ideas of things you can talk about in your first class as well as giving you tips about what to look out for so you can work on them in future classes.

Just go to the downloads section on tmenglish.org. I would love to hear how it goes so feel free to drop me a line.